Week ending 20 January 2018: CJ is back!

Derek returns after the Christmas break with some old Cosmic Jazz favourites, featuring music from Nigeria, the USA and Argentina. It’s a mixture of sounds to make you dance and connect your soul with your spirit. Most artists in this week’s show are likely to be familiar to regular listeners – with the exception of Francisco Mora Catlett, US drummer and son of the Mexican artist Francisco Mora and American sculptor Elizabeth Catlett.

Living in Mexico City, Mora Catlett began as a session musician for Capitol Records. In 1970, he was awarded to attend the Berklee College of Music, where he studied composition and African percussion with the iconic Nigerian drummer, Babatunde Olatunji who so influenced John Coltrane’s music.

From 1973 to 1980 Mora Catlett traveled the spaceways as a member of the Sun Ra Arkestra and it was Ra who introduced him to the African-American poet and writer, Henry Dumas. Inspired by Dumas’s writings, Mora Catlett assembled the first incarnation of his Afro Horn project in Detroit in the early 1980s. He appeared with legendary drummer, composer, and bandleader Max Roach on several of Roach’s all-percussion ensemble albums, M’Boom.

In 1996 Mora Catlett took part in two groundbreaking jazz/electronica fusion projects with techno producer, Carl Craig – Bugs in the BassBin and OuterZone – and in 1999, he released the highly acclaimed World Trade Music album which features the track Vital Force.